naturalplastic wrote:
Not all that earth shaking.
When our own solar system was in its infancy it was unstable. Many planets either got ejected out of the solar system to become interstellar rogue planets (when scientists add extra planets to computer similutions of our solar system thats what usually happens to the extra planets), or the planets got sent the opposite way into the sun.
A fifth planet should exist between Mars and Jupiter, but Jupiter gobbled it up...and left only the asteroid belt.
And the moon exists because a Mars sized planet slammed into the earth in those early days...merged with earth but coughed up the Moon as debris.
I've always liked the idea of the "5th Giant." Planet-formation simulations struggle to get the 4 gas giant planets orbiting as far out as they are without one of them getting violently expelled from the solar system. But it all works much better if there was a 5th gas giant between Saturn and Neptune that
did get ejected.
_________________
You're so vain
I bet you think this sig is about you